[Mod]Star Wars: Interregnum [3.21 Release, 7-8-16]

A new Star Wars experience built on the Enhanced 4X Mod

Star Wars: Interregnum is an upcoming mod for Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion that builds off of the highly successful Enhanced 4X Mod. Fleeing the unknown terror that is chasing the Vasari, the factions of Sins of a Solar Empire stumble on a temporary wormhole that takes them to a galaxy far, far away. The sudden arrival of armadas with trillions of refugees and thousands of warships between the events of Episodes 5 & 6 forever alters the Star Wars universe and plunges the galaxy into an unprecedented period of chaos and violence.

Features

4 new factions: Interregnum will feature 2 new races each with 2 subfactions like vanilla Sins races...

The Galactic Empire is the remains of Palpatine's Empire now headed by Darth Vader, and enjoys a powerful industrial base and perhaps the most powerful fleet of all factions. However Vader's poor political skills and the feeling that the Empire is being crushed from all sides has left the Empire with extremely poor morale, and further defeats may start damaging the Empire's war effort.

The Imperial Warlords are an umbrella faction that represents the various Empire factions that have operational independence, whether they've gone Rogue to serve their own agenda or are acting under orders in special circumstances. While lacking the legitimacy and infrastructure of the Galactic Empire, this has forced the warlords to use their forces more wisely than the sometimes brutish Imperial war machine. And the Emperor's fondness for conducting research in remote locations, along with Vader lack of interest in major R&D projects has allowed the Warlords to get access to many powerful technologies that might more than make up for their shortcomings. The player will also be able to choose to ally with one of the Major warlords for additional bonuses, mainly Grand Admiral Thrawn, Grand Moff Ardus Kaine, Warlord Zsinj, and Director Yasanne Isard.

The Rebel Alliance is the original military branch of the Alliance to Restore the Republic and continues to fight the Empire much as it did in the Galactic Civil war. Preferring hit and run attacks and strikecraft superiority along with some innovative and dirty tricks, the Rebels are one of the most unique factions and are extremely difficult to stamp out.

The New Republic (unreleased) was created by Rebel sympathizing planets after the Empire was forced to abandoned the Outer Rim following the emergence of the Sins races. Fearing that the Rebels would not be strong enough to protect them if the Empire tried to conquer them again, the New Republic has decided to create its own conventional armed forces from scratch. While this focus on new institutions leaves the New Republic vulnerable and disinclined to attack early on, once it gets going its powerful new warship designs along with its substantial economic and cultural strengths make the New Republic an extremely competent and well rounded faction with few weaknesses.

Superior Gameplay: As a successor mod to the Enhanced 4X Mod, Interregnum will support all the gameplay enhancements found in that mod, including...

Hero Units: Both Sins and Star Wars factions can call in their most powerful champions to turn the tide of battle.

New Planets and Random Encounters: Truly Explore the Galaxy far, far away with an expanded array of planet types, some of which will be populated with everything from Rogue Imperial Moffs to abandoned Republic era fleets to Mandalorian raiders.

Improved Civics, Economy, Diplomacy and Espionoge: Don't feel like just blasting your opponent? The Enhanced 4X substantially fleshes out the noncombat side of Gameplay with things like improved culture, embassies and spying.

Customization: From adding upgrades to your favorite capitalships and titan to a library of minimods to customize your gameplay experience,

Upgrades to existing factions: Players totally new to the Enhanced 4X series of mods will find the familiar Vanilla races they know have all gotten an upgraded. All factions of received new techs, faction and racial bonuses, new starting units and other alterations that encourages more diverse gameplay.

With the third alpha release, the Rebel Alliance has been added, meaning this mod can now be used to relive the Galactic Civil War as well as the current war with the Sins factions. The militia and pirates have also been replaced with Star Wars versions; now the vast majority of material on the game map is clearly from a galaxy far, far away.

Total War has broken out throughout the Galaxy. Emperor Palpatine, leader of the Galactic Empire, has been killed after the extra galactic Triple Alliance of the Trader Emergency Coalition (TEC), the Ascended Advent and the Vasari Independent Republic (VIR) destroyed the unfinished Death Star above the forest moon of Endor. Darth Vader, de facto heir to the Empire, has struggled to repel the new invaders, and his lack of diplomatic skills has encouraged treacherous and opportunistic Imperial officials to break away and fragment the Empire. No longer able to devote most of the Imperial fleet to hunting the Rebels, a string of revolts against Imperial rule from Mon Calamari to Bothawui has allowed the Rebellion's Political leadership to create a formal New Republic. Fearing eventual retaliation by the Empire however, these newly independent worlds began developing their own institutions and military, while the existing Rebels launch ever bolder guerillas attacks against Imperial targets. Seeing a chance to work against the mutual Enemy, Princess Leia convinced the Triple Alliance and the New Republic to sign an agreement vowing to work together to destroy the Empire in exchange for allowing the members of the Triple Alliance to settle in the galaxy under their own governments within a new Galactic Republic.

The Empire was saved however, by a second wave of extragalactic factions. One group, calling itself the Human Trader State (HTS), invaded the territory of the Chiss Ascendency in the unknown regions. Fearing extermination by these radical humans, the Chiss petitioned Lord Vader for aid. In return for becoming an Imperial protectorate, Vader sent a expeditionary force under Grand Admiral Thrawn and his lieutenant Gilad Pellaeon to meet these new invaders. On seeing human forces joining the Chiss, the HTS halted the battle, and Thrawn was able to talk them into joining an Alliance with the humanocentric Empire to help it repel the HTS' familiar old enemies.

At the same time, the original order of telepathic, now formally organized as the Orthodox Unity, cut around the edges of the unknown regions to emerge near the corporate sector. Claiming it was fighting on behalf of the Empire, the Advent attacked the forces of the rogue Warlord Zsinj. Occupying most of his fiefdom and some minor New Republic territories, the Advent formed a mutual defense pact with the powerful and independent minded peoples in the area, including the Hapans, Wookies and most importantly the Mandalorians. Effectively acting as a buffer state between the Empire and New Republic in the galactic North, the Advent sent emissaries of the unity to convert the native populations of the Galaxy, taking advantage of the fact that all major factions are too busy to want to challenge it. Fighting continues however with the remained of Zsinj's Forces and the much better organized Pentastar Alignment under Grand Moff Ardus Kaine, throwing even this relatively isolated corner of the Galaxy into total war.

Meanwhile, the Vasari Central Command went the other way around the galaxy, emerging in the Galactic west on the edge of New Republic space. This prompted the nearby Huts, fearful of being incorporated into the growing Triple Alliance, New Republic or Advent, to offer them several planets to settle on in exchange for protection from other forces. The Vasari's ambitions were not that small however, and the Huts found themselves dealing with a race even more cunning and ruthless than themselves. Enslaved from orbit by fear of the fully mobile Vasari battlefleets, capable of consuming entire planets, the Vasari occupied Hut Space and expanded it in all direction, beating back the Advent and almost cutting the New Republic in two before stopping. While a total information blackout has resulted by the Vasari severing the Holonet, astronomers have confirmed strange gravitational anomalies from Hut space, as if entire planets had disappeared.

It is now 4 years after the Battle of Endor, and every corner of the Galaxy is locked in warfare and stalemate. Still retaining control of the core worlds and the shipyards of Fondor, Kuat and Bilbringi, as well as the Capital Coruscant, the Empire under Darth Vader has managed to rebuild and stop the invading Triple Alliance and Rebels at the Inner Rim, while their HTS allies have opened up a second front in the Outer Rim. The New Republic remains focused on building its institutions until it can decisively intervene to turn the tide of the war, however, its failed invasions of the last Imperial positions in the Mid Rim reveal it will be some time before it is ready. The Advent continue their campaign against the Rogue Imperials to buy time for their missionaries to convert the natives of the Galaxy to the Unity. And no one doubts the Vasari are planning something sinister from their outpost in Hut Space. As these 10 factions battle among themselves, it will take a Commander and Strategist of unrivaled skill to bring an end to the Great Interregnum...

In-Game Description: A smaller Star Destroyer design capable of atmospheric operations, the Victory class Star Destroyer has been made obsolete in space combat, but still serves as a useful planetary assault and garrison ship.

Role: Colony/Siege

Strikecraft: 1-2 Squads.

TIE Fighter

TIE Bomber

TIE Bomber (Proton Bombs)

Abilities

Establish Garrison: The Victory Star Destroyer sends a landing party and a prefabricated garrison base down to the planet via Sentinel landing craft, bring the planet under your control. The garrison also constructs resource extractors and increases the planet's maximum hit points.

Bombardment Leader: The experienced gunnery crews and specialized targeting computers on this vessel allow it to better direct planetary bombardment, increasing the damage dealt by allies to enemy planets while the Star Destroyer is in the gravity well.

Boron Missile Strike: Fires a salvo of powerful long range Boron missiles modified to deal maximum damage to orbital structures and starbases while reducing their armor.

Landing Force: Deploys several Sentinel Landing Craft to land Stormtroopers on an enemy planet to destroy key planetary infrastructure, dealing substantial damage to the planet and slowing ship and planet upgrade construction.

Analysis: The Wars of Interregnum have forced the Imperial Navy to become increasingly specialized, and no warship better shows this than the original Victory class. While the extra-galactic invader's preference for orbital bombardment has caused most Imperial Warships to carry few if any ground forces, the Victory class has been retooled into all in one planetary assault ships. As one of the few Imperial capitalships available at the start, its ability to establish new bases makes the Victory class the go to first capitalship for Imperial commanders. Its outdated engines and weapons means it will lose to other capitalships in a space battle, but the Victory class' atmospheric flight capabilities and missile tubes make it adept at clearing gravity wells of enemy structures and then bombing the defenseless planet. It can also deploy ground forces to speed this task along while halting enemy production, and of course once the planet surrenders it can establish a new garrison straight away.

Also worth mentioning is that while the Victory class does not carry the more advanced TIE Fighters that other Star Destroyers do, it is the only Imperial ship that deployed TIE Bombers with Proton Bombs, which deal extra damage to space stations and starbases, further helping the Victory class clear enemy gravity wells.

Victory-II class Star Destroyer

In-Game Description: A Star Destroyer that shares the same base hull as the Victory-I, the Victory-II's improved support systems, faster engines and ion cannons make it better suited for space combat. It is an effective warship that makes an excellent escort for larger Star Destroyers.

Role: Battleship/Fleet Support

Strikecraft: 0-2 Squads.

TIE Fighter

TIE Bomber

Abilities

Doubled Efforts: The ambitious Captain of the Victory-II rallies his ship and nearby allies to fight with all available energy, increasing unit initiative and providing more energy for special abilities.

Disruptive Ion Bolts: A key improvement over the Victory-I, the Victory-II Star Destroyer's Ion Cannons are a useful tool, capable of inflicting extra damage to shields and reducing enemy rate of fire if the target's shields are down.

Screening: Orders the Victory-II to act as a screening ship for another Star Destroyer, increasing the speed and firepower of the Victory-II as it rushes to engage while reducing the damage the escorted ship takes.

Analysis: First produced late in the Clone Wars, the Victory-II ended up having much more influence on future capitalship design than its more widely used contemporary the Venator class. Its focus on Turbolasers and Ion Cannons to engage forces in ship to ship combat at the expense of missiles and fighter squadrons became standard on later Star Destroyer models. While good combat ships in their own right, their limited fighter capacity limited their usefulness against the starfighter raids often used by the Rebellion, causing many Victory-IIs to be delegated to planetary defense forces, used as flagships in sector patrols (a Victory-II destroyer was the first to encounter a Triple Alliance task force several light years from Endor), or put into reserve. However, the Great Interregnum has brought these ships back into primary fleet combat roles, as the numerous smaller frigates used by the Sins races have forced the Imperial navy to protect its larger Star Destroyers with powerful escorts to prevent them from being swarmed.

Imperial-class Star Destroyer

In-Game Description: The infamous icon of the Imperial fleet, the Imperial Star Destroyer is a well rounded warship with a focus on command and deployment abilities.

Role: Carrier

Strikecraft: 2-6 Squads.

TIE Fighter

TIE Bomber

TIE Interceptor

Abilities

Tractor Beam: "Activates the Imperial Star Destroyer's Phylon Q7 Tractor Beam, drawing a target ship closer to the Star Destroyer, preventing it from jumping into hyperspace and making it more vulnerable to weapons. Assault Shuttles boarding a tractor beamed target will inflict more damage."

Deploy Gunboats: Deploys a group of Alpha-class Xg-1 Star Wing Gunboats from the Star Destroyer's hangar bay. Armed with lasers, small ion cannons and warhead launchers, these fighter/bombers can engage many types of enemies. Higher levels of this ability spawn more gunboats.

Assault Shuttles: Sends a shuttle full of Stormtroopers to board an enemy starship, sabotaging the hull and if possible capturing the vessel. Deals increased damage to targets in a tractor beam.

Imperial Presence: As one of the main symbols of Imperial stability and order, the presence of an Imperial Star Destroyer is a potent rallying symbol for the Empire's units, increasing the shield mitigation of all nearby friendly ships.

Analysis: The first of the the 1.6km capitalships of the Empire, the original Imperial Star Destroyer serves as an effective command and carrier unit. While it and the other Imperial capitalships below are larger and more powerful than standard Sins capitalships, they are also more expensive, use more fleet supply and require research before they can be constructed.

A well rounded warship, the Imperial Star Destroyer's abilities allow it to play a number of roles. For one, it can do direct hull damage and has a chance to capture enemy frigates with Assault Shuttles, allowing an Imperial Fleet to gain new units in the middle of a battle. This is even more effective if it is using its tractor beam ability at the same time, for the target will be stuck in range and take much more damage.

It also has the largest fighter capacity of any regular Imperial capitalship. Among its figher compliment, it can deploy powerful Alpha Assault gunboats with its Deploy Gunboat ability, which can deal substantial damage to almost any unit. It is also one of the few units that can deploy the more advanced TIE Interceptors as one of its fighter squadrons. However, these advanced fighters take much longer to build and cost antimatter to replenish. Deploy to many of them and your Star Destroyer may not have enough antimatter to use its normal abilities, and if they are destroyed they cannot be replaced as quickly as normal TIE fighters.

Finally, the Imperial Star Destroyer's ultimate ability, Imperial Presence, is a passive ability that increases the shield mitigation of all nearby Imperial Units. This means high level Imperial Star Destroyers are invaluable in increasing your fleet's survivability, especially for a faction that lacks an efficient repair cruiser like the Hoshiko.

Imperial-II class Star Destroyer

Interdictor-class Star Destroyer

Tector-class Star Destroyer

In-Game Description: A variant of the Imperial Star Destroyer that traded its main hangar bays for a larger and more well protected hypermatter reactor, the Tector class serves as a powerful battleship with extra endurance and firepower more than making up for a lack of starfighter support.

Role: Battleship

Strikecraft: None

Abilities

Energy Surge: The Tector Star Destroyer pushes its reactor core to full power, increasing the damage output of its weapons while rapidly regenerating its shields.

Durasteel Curtain: Increases the armor of all friendly ships near the Tector Star Destroyer.

Armored Reactor: While lacking the large hangar bay of the Imperial class, the Tector Star Destroyer instead features a massive armored hypermatter reactor core that is almost impossible to damage. This prevents the Tector from being disabled by most abilities.

Analysis: Essentially an Imperial-II Star Destroyer with heavier armor and its main hangar bay removed to fit a more powerful reactor, the Tector is the most powerful Star Destroyer in the Empire's service in direct combat, with the exception of only the Allegiance class Battlecruiser and the Executor class Star Dreadnaught. While the lack of TIE fighters may hurt the Tector's versatility, it more than makes up for it by being extremely difficult to kill. While the Tector lacks an ultimate ability, it instead has the "Armored Reactor" passive ability available from the start, preventing most abilities from disabling its systems. The Tector can boost its armor as well of that of nearby friendly ships with Durasteel curtain, while it can restore its shields with Energy Surge. This ensures both the hull and shields of the Tector are much more difficult to deplete than the standard Imperial Star Destroyers. Finally, Energy Surge and Crippling Shots give the Tector potent offensive firepower, and the later ability is especially useful in weakening important enemy units so that your entire fleet can focus fire and quickly destroy it.

Unit and Character Roster for Star Wars Interregnum. Planned ships and characters are those that are guaranteed to be released in later versions of the mod. More units will likely be added to this list in the future, especially as the Alliance factions get closer to completion.

The Missile Boat did not see widespread use unlike the K/E-Wing. They also wouldn't work well in Sins, unless they were used as a dedicated air superiority fighter, and it would absolutely dominate everything in that role. IMO that thing is the most OP fighter in SW, even more than the TIE Defender as it has ten times the latter's missile payload.

Wait, you have K-wing and E-wings, but yet, you don't have missile boats?

*Flips tables*

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Missile_Boat

I'm aware of the missile boat. The problem isn't the model but the fact that carriers in Sins can only have 4 different types of strikecraft. And the TIE Fighters, Bombers, Interceptors and Defenders take all the slots on most Imperial capitalships.

The reason E-wings can make it in is because the New Republic and Rebel Alliance will at most only share half of their ship roster, so the New Republic only ships will have E-wings instead of Y-wings.

The K-wings and Alpha Gunships will actually be pretty rare, they won't be buildable on any normal carrier but can only be deployed via a capitalship ability. So it's possible I may add in that way later on if the Imps need another cap ability. I guess I could also bump them up with the Skipray Blastboat to Corvette status but it seems like they'd behave more like LRF frigates than anything.

The E-Wing is space superiority like the X-Wing, not a bomber like the Y-Wing. IMO if the Rebel Alliance is using old ships and the New Republic the newer ones, the RA should get the original trilogy fighters with X-Wing as space superiority, A-Wing as intercept, B-Wing as assault, and Y-Wing as heavy bomber, and the NR the E-Wing as space superiority, A-Wing as intercept, B-Wing as assault fighter, and K-Wing as bomber, with the RA versions of shared vessels being older, slightly inferior models that build faster and with less antimatter usage.

The E-Wing is space superiority like the X-Wing, not a bomber like the Y-Wing. IMO if the Rebel Alliance is using old ships and the New Republic the newer ones, the RA should get the original trilogy fighters with X-Wing as space superiority, A-Wing as intercept, B-Wing as assault, and Y-Wing as heavy bomber, and the NR the E-Wing as space superiority, A-Wing as intercept, B-Wing as assault fighter, and K-Wing as bomber, with the RA versions of shared vessels being older, slightly inferior models that build faster and with less antimatter usage.

I'm afraid you misunderstand me a bit. I did not say that the E-wing is replacing the Y-wing, I said that the New Republic ships will not have the ability to deploy Y-wings (which were near obsolete even by the battle of Yavin), but will be able to have E-wings instead. The basic "Fighter" and "Bomber" fighters that are analog to the Vanilla strikecraft are the X-wing and B-wing for both the Alliance and New Republic. Any other fighters Star Wars ships maybe able to deploy are purely bonus, there are no other hard roles I am giving everyone else. Fighters like the A-wing and E-wing have no analog with Sins vanilla fighters, so I consider them to be the equivalent as faction unique technologies, and they will require research to unlock and resources for each squadron you produce unlike standard fighters. Advanced fighters like these can also only be produced by capitalships, titans, starbases and heroes, so while they are overall better than standard strikecraft, they will be more expensive and can only be deployed in fairly limited numbers.

The exception to this is actually the Y-wing, in fact it might be used more by pirates, mercenaries and militia than by the Rebels. It really is inferior to the B-wing in every way except durability, but its slower speed probably means fighters and antistrikecraft frigates can hunt it more easily. That said it will have two variants, one with concussion missiles that acts as a subpar standard Sins bomber and be used my third party factions and older Alliance ships (which will have them instead of B-wings), and another that will have proton bombs that will act as a "Antimodule" bomber, which will only be able to attack structures and starbases but will do more damage than even B-wings. Rebel ships that have B-wings will only have the antimodule version available as the B-wing is superior in almost every way and is also free.

That said Y-wing fans will probably like the fact that the Rebels and New Republic do not have siege frigates. Rather than planetary bombardment like the other factions do, their carriers and capitalships will send either Y-wings or for the newest NR ships K-wings down to the surface to do precision bombing in an attempt to minimize civilian casualties.

The Skipray might work better as a Sins corvette than a Sins frigate, mainly as it has less armament then decently armed SW corvettes and the K-Wing.

The Skipray is indeed the Empire's Corvette, I just didn't want a separate category for 2 or 3 ships.

And for anyone who says the Skipray is still too small for that, I noticed something interesting in the Rebellion manual. Despite the TEC Corvettes being near the size of a scout frigate and maybe 60% of the size of a Cobalt in game, they actually only have a crew compliment of 10, compared to 75 for the Scout Frigate and 150 for the Cobalt. To me this says Corvettes are actually supposed to be much smaller than they appear in game, and are actually more of the size of Star Wars gunships and freighters like the Skipray or the Millennium falcon. The next version of E4X will thus make all Corvettes noticeable smaller so my the time this mod comes out scale will be much less of a problem here.

One of my favorite things about E4X is the Hero ships system, so I'm extra super looking forward to SW cannon heroes!. I hope the SoA2 team will/can implement that feature as well some day.

I´m curious about it because I do know how a unique unit can be made at SOASE. Now thinking one off topic, I would like ground battles at SOASE, if it was as the old Imperium Galactica, it would be the best game from this type.

I love E4X, and I'm very excited for your take on Star Wars. You have a solid ship roster already.

One of my favorite things about E4X is the Hero ships system, so I'm extra super looking forward to SW cannon heroes!. I hope the SoA2 team will/can implement that feature as well some day.

Thank you sir & Cheers!

Thanks for the support! In fact one of the reasons for making hero units in Enhanced 4X was so that the Vanilla races would have heroes to go into battle with the Star Wars ones. I didn't realize that mod would be Interregnum then but this has definitely been planed for a long time.

I´m curious about it because I do know how a unique unit can be made at SOASE. Now thinking one off topic, I would like ground battles at SOASE, if it was as the old Imperium Galactica, it would be the best game from this type.

Well besides titans, it is possible but not easy. Just getting one hero to work properly requires two abilities and 7-9 buffs. It took quite a bit of thought and lots of doodles on white boards to figure it out.

Quoting GoaFan77, reply 22 Progress continues, I really like how the player portraits have come out.

Reduced 55%Original 1024 x 529

Dont disappoint me again.... Admiral.

Admiral Piett is actually one of the Imperial player portraits and a Hero unit, since Vader and the Executor they were on survived the alternate Battle of Endor. But rest assured, that does not mean Vader has lost his touch at executing underlings, in fact this is basically the Imperial defeat screen.

Admiral Piett is actually one of the Imperial player portraits and a Hero unit, since Vader and the Executor they were on survived the alternate Battle of Endor. But rest assured, that does not mean Vader has lost his touch at executing underlings, in fact this is basically the Imperial defeat screen.